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Musical instruments in Mexico: indigenous and introduced

Oct 272014

The following account of Mexico’s traditional (folkloric) and introduced musical instruments consists of extracts from an article by Andrea Teter. [1]

Pre-Columbian instruments

Archaeologists have noted the existence of more than 1,400 musical instruments used in pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America. These were used primarily for religious, and healing rituals and for ceremonies, but also for war, dances, fiestas and entertainment. Some of these instruments, primarily the huehuetl, and teponaztli, both percussion, and the tlapitzalli, a four-hole flute, were considered divine or endowed with supernatural powers, say Mexican archeologists, and were worshiped as idols.

Teponaztli

The Mexica (Aztecs) used flutes and trumpets made of clay, bamboo and metal. Drums, including the ayotl, made of tortoise shells, and other percussion instruments were used extensively. The huehuetl was the principal drum used by the Mexica and was made from animal skin stretched over a hollowed-out tree trunk. The teponaztli was made from hollowed-out trees or dried gourds, and sometimes gold and silver, with grooves or tongues cut into the top. Rich and varied tones are produced when played with small mallets. Pre-Columbian musicians also used cymbals, maracas, bells and even stones to produce their music.

The Youtube clip below is one interpretation of what some of Mexico’s indigenous musical instruments may have sounded like when played:

Europeans arrive

With the invasion of the Spanish, these musical instruments were immediately used to help convert the indigenous population to Christianity, while the Conquistadors began introducing European musical methods and instruments. A Franciscan missionary, Pedro de Gante, established the first music school in Mexico in 1523 and trained students in the construction and playing of European instruments.

Little by little, all of the European instruments were introduced to Latin America, starting in the 16th century with organs, guitars, harps and flutes, and later followed by the violins, trumpets, mandolins and accordions. Especially important and influential were guitars, which rose to prominence in the seventeenth century, as an easier-to-play alternative to the lute.

Six-string guitars, viheulas, became extremely popular in Mexico with other instruments of the same family also put into general use: five-string charangos, tiples, or treble guitars, and a large 12-string guitar similar to a bass, the bajo sexto.

Another string instrument that became popular in Mexico was the mandolin. The mandolin, which comes from Southern Italy, is the most recent development of the lute family. It was popularized in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Verdi’s “Othello”.

The salterio, originally from Egypt, is a stringed instrument a little larger than a briefcase with a sound resembling a harpsichord and a playing method resembling a steel guitar or autoharp. The musician plucks the 97 strings while it rests on his knees; the sound is unique and quite beautiful.

Once the Spanish began importing slaves from Africa, these blacks began constructing marimbas, which imitated the African xylophone. As early as 1545, a Spanish scribe in the state of Chiapas wrote of an instrument of eight wood bars played with heavy sticks by the local natives at tribal ceremonies. The modern sophisticated Mexican marimbas was developed by Chiapas musician Corazon Borraz, who in 1896 brilliantly added a second row of half-tone bars to the common single row (like a piano’s black keys) adding to the musical scope of the original instrument, allowing it to play more complex music.

A marimba band: two marimbas plus guitar and drums

Today, a concert marimba can be three meters long, have 70 keys and weigh more than 55 kilos. This grand instrument demands four musicians; the bass man at the wide end with two sticks or baguetas having small rubber balls on the striking tips. This end has long resonance boxes hanging below the sound keys. Then the harmonics man with one or two sticks in each hand above shorter resonance boxes. Then comes the melody maker and leader, wielding two sticks per hand; then the narrow end controlled by the treble master, a stick in each hand producing counterpoint to the melody. Talk about a compact orchestra!

The variety of instruments Mexican musicians and composers have access to has resulted in a distinctive music for this country. At least one Mexican composer, Carlos Chavez, has gained international fame with his integration of Mexican pre-Hispanic instruments in his works such as “Sinfonia India,” “Xochipilli” and “Macuilxochitl.”

Some Mexican composers have been even more innovative. For example, Julián Carrillo (nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1950), one of Mexico’s top violinists, invented a microtonal music system known as Sonido 13. The system became sufficiently famous that Carrillo’s birthplace in the state of San Luis Potosí felt obliged to rename itself Ahualulco del Sonido 13: an interesting place to visit for any geographers interested in microtonal music! Ahualulco del Sonido 13 is located 39 kilometers northwest of the city of San Luis Potosí. Leaving that city, first follow federal highway 49 towards Zacatecas and then turn north on the road signed Charcas.

Listen to a 12-minute sample mp3 of Sonido 13: Balbuceos (“Babblings”) (1958)
Webpage with selection of Sonido 13 tracks

Want to read more?

Sonido 13 is the subject of chapter 25 of my Mexican Kaleidoscope: myths, mysteries and mystique
The website Indigenous Instruments of Mexico and Mesoamerica offers lots of interesting additional information about ancient musical instruments in Mexico.

Note:

[1] The bibliographic details for Andrea Teter’s article are currently unknown. Please contact us if you are able to supply any further information about these extracts, so that we can update to include the full reference.

Related posts:

The geography of music and dance in Mexico

Which states are growing fastest?

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Oct 202014

Which of Mexico’s states have the fastest growing economies? The map below, based on INEGI data, shows each state’s percentage change in GDP for the three year period from 31 March 2011 to 31 March 2014.

Change in GDP by state, 2011-2014. Data: INEGI. Credit: Geo-Mexico

Only one state – Campeche – registered “negative growth” over the period. In Campeche, production from the oil fields that have long been a mainstay of the local economy has been gradually declining.

Besides Campeche, six states grew far slower than the average for Mexico: Durango, Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Guerrero. Not entirely coincidentally, several of these states are among the poorest in the nation, so their failure to grow as quickly as the average leaves them further behind, increasing the economic inequalities that plague Mexico’s development.

At the other end of the spectrum, the economic growth of six states – Sonora, Chihuahua, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Michoacán and Querétaro – easily outpaced the average for the country. Sonora, Chihuahua, Guanjuato, Querétaro, and to a lesser extent Aguascalientes, all benefited from foreign direct investments and new industries, such as those involved in the vehicle manufacturing and aeronautical sectors.

The case of Michoacán is something of an anomaly, since that state’s economy is still heavily dependent on primary products such as avocados and iron ore. The positive growth in that state may prove to be mainly due to its negative growth in the preceding three years (2008-2011), which meant that it started the three year period shown on the map at an unusually low level. Perhaps more importantly, given the state’s recent political upheavals and gang-related violence, it is highly unlikely that Michoacán will continue to grow anywhere as quickly over the next three years.

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Are Monarch Butterflies in danger of extinction?

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Oct 182014

As a species, monarchs are native to North America, but subsequently island-hopped their way around the world—across the Pacific to Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Australia and New Zealand, and across the Atlantic to Europe. In parts of Mexico, particularly in the area around Lake Chapala, there is a healthy population of non-migrating monarch butterflies; these butterflies can count on year-round access to milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. As a result, it is reasonable to conclude that the species itself is in no danger of extinction.

However, what may be “endangered” is the annual migration of Monarch Butterflies to and from Mexico. This annual migration is categorized as an “endangered phenomenon” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Threats to the migration come from climatic change and extremes, as well as from the impacts of human activity. In some years, unusually cold snaps and hailstorms have caused the premature death of millions of butterflies, though, as yet, this has had little if any discernible effect on total monarch numbers. Human activity has greatly reduced the area of the monarchs’ natural overwintering habitats, in both California, for real estate developments, and in Michoacán, due to forest clearance for timber and agriculture. Farming activities in the US have also resulted in the loss of milkweed along the Monarchs’ migratory pathways. This loss may have far more serious consequences on the long-term viability of the annual migration. Without milkweed, the female Monarchs are unable to lay their eggs on a suitable host plant, and the Monarch caterpillars will never acquire their chemical defenses against predation.

The numbers of Monarchs overwintering in Mexico have varied greatly from one year to the next. The graph below, reproduced widely in the press, has been used as evidence that the numbers of migrating Monarchs are in sharp decline. A note of caution is needed, though, since the estimates of numbers used for the graph are based on the area of trees occupied by the butterflies, and not on a direct count (which is clearly impractical!)

The challenge for researchers is to be certain that the density and architecture of trees is similar from one year to the next. If the trees are less densely grouped, for example, one year than the next, in the particular areas occupied by the butterflies, then the area the butterflies need will be correspondingly larger. The lower area in recent years could be at least partially explained by a higher tree density in the overwintering areas, allowing the same number of butterflies to co-exist in closer proximity to each other.

This is not to say that there is not cause for concern. According to the National University (UNAM)’s Environmental Geography Research Center, at current rates of deforestation, the area of overwintering sites for the Monarch butterflies could be reduced by 75% in the next 18 years, leaving just 12,000 ha of suitable habitat. The protected area, established in 2000, covers 560 square kilometers (56,000 ha. or 216 sq. mi) but includes land cleared for pasture, settlement and cultivation. Researcher José López García claims the reserve is losing 3% of its forest each year. He blames clearance and changes of land use more than illegal logging. The rate of forest clearance has been exacerbated by a rapid rise in the population of the El Rosario ejido. El Rosario is the gateway to the most-visited part of the reserve, attracting thousands of tourists annually. The ejido’s population rose by an average of 5.65%/year between 2005 and 2010.

What is Mexico doing about this?

The Mexican conservation strategies for the butterflies are designed to protect their overwintering habitat and provide alternative sources of revenue and employment for local campesinos who depend on the land and forest for their livelihood. After some doubtful years in the early 1980s, there is now a system of formally protected monarch butterfly reserves, and concerted conservation efforts to prevent further destruction of the monarchs’ unique overwintering habitat.

The modest entrance fees to Monarch Butterfly reserves help fund development projects in the local communities. There is a strict code of conduct for tourists to prevent noise, littering and straying from the well-marked paths.

While the new rules have undoubtedly had some success, it is still preferable to visit, if at all possible, during the week and not at the weekend when the reserves are at their crazily busiest.

On a quiet day,pausing to catch your breath in the peace of the forest as you climb the trail, you will then be just as surprised as I first was when you realize that the gentle swishing sound you can hear around you is not the sound of the wind blowing through the tree limbs but the sound caused by millions of tiny wings beating as the butterflies flutter about in the sky.

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The Ghost Train (El Tren Fantasma): a case study of the geography of sound in Mexico

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Oct 162014

Geography is not only about things that can be seen, touched and measured. Many branches of geography consider how people think, how communities make decisions and how nations interact.

At a local scale, one of the characteristics that is often overlooked is sound. We often ignore the soundscapes of places, either because we are “too busy” to listen and take in the local sounds, or because we are “too busy” tuning any distinctive local sounds out while using our cell phones or listening to favorite music.

Soundscapes vary greatly from rural areas to urban areas, and from one region to another; Mexico’s urban soundscapes are among the most distinctive on the planet.

In previous posts, we listened to The distinctive sounds of Mexico’s towns and cities; covered our ears as we analysed Noise pollution in Mexico; and also described the amazing Whistled language of the Chinantec people in Oaxaca.

In this post, we take a look at Chris Watson’s intriguing 2011 album “El Tren Fantasma”:

U.K.-based Chris Watson is a preeminent freelance recordist of wildlife and natural phenomena, whose work has been featured in many BBC programs including David Attenborough’s series, The Life Of Birds. As Watson has remarked, sound recording allows you to put a microphone where you can’t put your ears, to enable you to listen to sounds such as the groaning ice of a moving glacier. His work for the BBC was audio vérité but more recently, including in El Tren Fantasma, Watson has experimented with post production techniques to meld field recordings into a narrative.

The result is strangely compelling, dramatic and in some respects, awesome!

The soundscapes of El Tren Fantasma (the title is identical to that of a 1927 Mexican movie) offer a trip from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf Coast of Mexico condensed into little more than an hour.

The first six tracks cover the section of railway best known as the Copper Canyon line, one of the few remaining routes in Mexico with regular passenger service.

El Tren Fantasma has 10 tracks (pun intended):

La Anunciante
Los Mochis
Sierra Tarahumara
El Divisadero
Crucero La Joya
Chihuahua
Aguascalientes
Mexico D.F.
El Tajin; El dia y La noche
Veracruz

If you don’t have time to listen to all 10 tracks, the most interesting, from a geographical point of view, are probably the following:

The trip was nicknamed the ghost train by Watson because there are no longer any passenger trains connecting the two coasts. Several years ago, Watson was the sound recordist for a film crew making a program in the BBC TV series Great Railway Journeys. Even then, part of the line was freight only, but in earlier times, there had been regular scheduled passenger trains across the country.

The promotional material asks potential listeners to, “Take the ghost train from Los Mochis to Veracruz and travel cross country, coast to coast, Pacific to Atlantic. Ride the rhythm of the rails on board the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM) and the music of a journey that has now passed into history.”

“In this album, the journey of the ‘ghost train’ is recreated, evoking memories of a recent past, capturing the atmosphere, rhythms and sounds of human life, wildlife and the journey itself along the tracks of one of Mexico’s greatest engineering projects.”

Reviews were almost universally positive.

Several reviewers recognized the connection between the soundscapes of El Tren Fantasma and geography, in some cases also attributing reasons for the decline of passenger train services in Mexico. For example Martin Hoyle, writing in The Financial Times, described how “From desert to rainforest, hummingbirds’ wings to the boom of heat rising from the Copper Canyon, it recalls a beloved passenger train system abandoned by privatisation.”

Pete Naughton in The Daily Telegraph wrote that the sound portrait painted by Watson “jostles with human, animal and mechanical life, filling the room with an atmosphere that is more richly evocative of Central America than any TV travel show I’ve seen. Diesel engines thrum, cicadas chirrup and passengers chatter, sing and argue.”

A reviewer in The Milk Factory (UK) drew attention to the “tremor of excitement as the sound of a diesel engine temporarily swallows the clunking noise of metal on metal and the strident hisses as wheels grind again rails and breaks against wheels”, before adding that, “Watson doesn’t aim to recreate the journey in any consistent chronology. Instead, he gives a taste of what this journey actually was by using nature and wildlife sounds to hint at the landscapes passed on the way.”

Spencer Grady, reviewing El Tren Fantasma for BBCi (UK), wrote that: “While Chris Watson’s previous sets – such as 2003’s critically acclaimed Weather Report – have generally concerned themselves with this planet’s myriad beasts and habitats, this narrative inevitably bears an anthropological mark. Indeed, the first voice we hear doesn’t belong to a cuckoo or coyote, but station announcer Ana Gonzalez Bello putting out one “last call for the ghost train”. It’s an unusually contrived opening gambit, from which point the listener is jettisoned into a collision of screeching breaks, rolling stock rattle and hot hydraulic huff. Over half of El Tren Fantasma’s tracks (pun definitely intended) are given over to locomotive sound – gears shifting, hoots, bells and whistles – climaxing with El Divisadero, where Watson manipulates the monolithic machinations into a surging, phantasmal bellow, like a choir of angels struggling to be heard over the rumbling thrum of running gear.”

For an academic geographer’s perspective on El Tren Fantasma, a good place to start (for those with academic library access) is a recent issue of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (Vol 39, No 3, 2014). In “El tren fantasma : arcs of sound and the acoustic spaces of landscapes”, George Revill, of the Open University, draws on Chris Watson’s soundwork “El tren fantasma” to consider “how sound participates in the production of the railway corridor as a complex, animate and deeply contoured historically and geographically specific experience of landscape.”

El Tren Fantasma offers an extraordinarily evocative sound summary of a trip across Mexico; what a shame that there are now so few passenger services left on Mexican railways!

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Mexico is a major net importer of “virtual” water

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Oct 132014

The concept of “virtual water” was developed by Professor J.A. Allan of King’s College (London University) and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Allan used it to support his argument that Middle Eastern countries could save their scarce water resources by relying more on food imports. The idea was sufficiently novel for Allan to be awarded the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize.

In Allan’s words, “The water is said to be virtual because once the wheat is grown, the real water used to grow it is no longer actually contained in the wheat. The concept of virtual water helps us realize how much water is needed to produce different goods and services. In semi-arid and arid areas, knowing the virtual water value of a good or service can be useful towards determining how best to use the scarce water available.”

As one example, producing a single kilogram of wheat requires (on average) around 1.5 cubic meters of water, with the precise volume depending on climatic conditions and farming techniques. The amount of water required to grow or make a product is known as the “water footprint” of the product.

Hoekstra and Chapagain have defined the virtual-water content of a product, commodity, good or service, as “the volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced”. The virtual water content is the sum of the water used in the various steps of the production chain.

Additional examples, showing the water footprint of producing one kilogram of:

biodiesel from soya – 11.4 cubic meters
beef – 15.4 cubic meters
butter – 5.5 cubic meters
chocolate – 17.0 cubic meters
pasta – 1.85 cubic meters
sugar (from cane) – 0.2 cubic meters

While the idea of virtual water has attracted some attention, its methodology is contested, and its quantification is not yet sufficiently precise to offer much potential for policy decisions.

Imports and exports of virtual water represent the “hidden” flows of water involved when food and other commodities are traded from one place to another. The map below (from Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012) shows the net imports (imports minus exports) of virtual water for different countries for the decade 1996-2005. Note that only the major flows are shown.

In North America, both the USA and Canada have a significant positive virtual water balance (i.e. they are major exporters of virtual water), whereas Mexico has a significant negative water balance, and is clearly one of the world’s largest importers of virtual water.

As Allan’s original work suggests, this is not necessarily bad news since it may imply that Mexico is currently using less of its own (limited) water resources than it might otherwise have to. In other words, Mexico’s virtual water imports may be delaying the inevitable crunch time when water usage becomes a critical limiting factor in the nation’s development.

Source of map

A.Y. Hoekstra and M.M. Mekonnen. 2012. The water footprint of humanity. Proc. Nat. Academy of Sciences, 109, 3232-7. Map was reproduced in “Spotlight on virtual water” by Stuart N. Lane in Geography, vol 99-1, Spring 2014, 51-3.

Related posts:

Mexico’s freshwater aquifers: undervalued and overexploited (Nov 2011)
How can Mexico City find sufficient water? (May 2013)

The annual migration of Monarch butterflies

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Oct 112014

Most monarch butterflies never migrate, but one generation of the North American monarch population undertakes an annual, long distance migration, a journey without parallel in the insect world. Every winter, some one hundred million monarch butterflies fly south into Mexico from the U.S. and Canada. They congregate and spend the winter in a dozen localities high in the temperate pine and fir forests of the states of México and Michoacán.

Where do the Monarchs overwinter?

The exact sites where the butterflies overwinter were only found in the mid 1970s after a search of nearly forty years. Scientists are still unable to explain all the details of this enigmatic annual migration, but their unexpectedly sophisticated navigational ability seems to rely on an incredible innate accuracy in pinpointing their position by using their eyes and antennas to measure the angles of the sun’s rays, compensating for time of day, and ensuring they continue to fly in a southerly direction towards the state boundary separating Michoacán from the State of México.

How fast can they fly?

The tagging of butterflies has proven that they make the 2500 kilometer trip each way at an impressive average speed of 20 km/h, with maximum speeds of up to 40 km/h (25 mph). Monarchs don’t fly at night, partly because they need daylight to navigate and partly because they fly best when sunlight has warmed their wings, like miniature solar panels, raising their body temperatures some 10 to 15 degrees Celsius above ambient air temperatures.

The butterflies are energy-efficient flyers, making regular nectar stops along the way to refuel. One third of their dry body weight is energy-giving fat but far from losing weight on their exhausting journey south, they actually appear to gain it! There are still many mysteries about the monarchs but they certainly provide one of the most amazing natural spectacles to be seen anywhere on earth. Millions of orange butterflies, with black and white-spotted wings, whether flying overhead or, as on cooler days, clinging apparently lifeless to the grey-green fir trees in such numbers that the trees appear to be in blossom, are an absolutely unforgettable sight.

Based on original map design created by Paul Mirocha (paulmirocha.com) for Monarch Watch.

The journey south

In September and October, as temperatures in the U.S. and Canada fall, and food supplies become scarce, the monarchs fly south in small groups. Some of these groups fly only as far as Florida or western California where they spend their winters in milder conditions. But many of the small groups from east of the Continental Divide eventually coalesce and fly much further south, as far as Mexico, arriving en masse in the state of Michoacán towards the end of November.

This migratory group is comprised of as many as 120 million individuals and spends the winter in semi-dormancy, on the pine and oyamel (sacred fir, Abies religiosa) trees found at elevation of about 3050 meters (10,000 feet) along Mexico’s central Volcanic Axis. Until spring comes, in March or April, these butterflies cling to the branches and trunks of the trees, enjoying temperatures between 10 and 16 degrees Celsius, protected from cold northerly winds. Their metabolism slows down in these low temperature, low oxygen conditions and they exhibit movement only on warm, sunny, days.

The generation that flies into Mexico does not mature sexually until the following spring. In February and March, the best months to see them, early spring sunlight begins to penetrate the groves of fir trees, temperatures begin to rise and the forest floor slowly comes alive with new plant growth. The butterflies, having successfully overwintered the worst weather, unfurl their wings and flutter about in search of food and water. As they regain their strength, so they become sexually mature and the mating process starts.

The journey north

After mating, the butterflies begin to leave the reserves, flying back towards the north. Five days later, in northern Mexico and the southern U.S., each female lays two to three hundred eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves. They first check (by smell and touch) that no eggs have already been laid there, and then space their eggs in such a way so as to ensure that each larva that hatches two to three days later will have an adequate supply of food. The larvae grow quickly, changing their skins five times before becoming pupae. After a further two weeks, butterflies emerge, and fly northwards. Each generation of monarchs probably acquires a different chemical “blueprint”, based on the exact species of milkweed it eats, giving it the information it needs to know where to fly. Eventually, by April, the northernmost butterflies reach Canada.

No individual butterfly completes the entire 5000 kilometer round trip. Most of those that fly south die soon after mating in spring (with males often dying in the reserves and never starting their homeward trip), while those who head north cannot hope to survive long into the summer, when normal reproductive cycles, each lasting from four to six weeks, are reestablished.

The last generation of each summer, perhaps prompted by shorter days, soon departs on the next wave of mass migration to Mexico. Those from furthest north will cross the Great Lakes on their return in a single day’s flight, an impressive feat in its own right. They have been spotted flying south at heights up to 1500 meters and exploit thermals to gain height and save energy.

Where to see Monarch Butterflies

Several monarch reserves are open to the public each year. Each has its own distinctive character. Two of the most important reserves are close to the town of Angangueo. Sierra Chincua, north of the town, is the site where the first Canadian-tagged monarch was found in the mid 1970s. This is also where I first saw the butterflies, in 1980, while looking for a potential site for geography fieldwork. It was a serendipitous discovery, and led to me being mistaken for a BBC reporter, but that’s another story!

Angangueo. Sketch by Mark Eager; all rights reserved.

The most accessible reserve open to the public is El Rosario, south of Angangueo, where there are dozens of souvenir stalls and rustic snack stands—don’t miss sampling the delicious hand-made blue-corn tortillas. The narrow trails in the sanctuary, with information boards at regular intervals, wind steeply several hundred meters uphill, reaching a maximum altitude of 3050 meters. This altitude can cause some shortage of breath and air temperatures are generally low, so be sure to bring a sweater.

El Rosario can be reached from either Angangueo (steeper but more direct approach) or Ocampo. Anyone driving their own vehicle to El Rosario is advised to use the route via San Felipe (on Highway 15) and then Ocampo. From Ocampo any vehicle with adequate ground clearance, including the local taxis, can negotiate the fourteen kilometers to the monarch sanctuary parking lot.

The San Felipe-Ocampo junction on Highway 15 is marked by a line of fruit and soft-drink stalls, many of which in season sell delicious granadas (pomegranates). Also at this junction is an interesting sixteenth century church which, until as recently as 1995, had tombstones in its atrium, unusual in Mexico. Normally, the Spanish buried their dead as far away from the churchyard as possible, presumably to avoid the risk of disease.

Want to read more?

Are Monarch Butterflies in danger of extinction?

This post is based on chapter 36 of my “Western Mexico: A Traveler’s Treasury” (link is to Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature), also available as either a Kindle edition or Kobo ebook.

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Recycled plastic boats for Xochimilco?

Mexico's geography in the Press Comments Off

Oct 092014

What will they think of next? Officials in Mexico City have plans to provide the tourist zone of the Xochimilco canals with environmentally friendly boats and barges and to gradually substitute the usual wooden ones, which have very high maintenance costs. The plan was unveiled a few weeks ago by Mauricio León, director of infrastructure, modernization and innovation for the Federal District.

Xochimilco (Wikipedia; creative commons)

Apparently, the traditional wooden vessels, known as trajineras, with their colorful arches, formerly used mostly to transport goods but now dedicated almost exclusively to tourism, require “an enormous expense” each year since they need to be renovated annually, in part due to “the deterioration in recent years” of the water quality in the canals. According to León, the water contains high levels of fungi that degrade the wood. (Q. In that case, why not clean the water, and keep the traditional designs made of wood?)

Mexico City officials have already launched a prototype of the new, plastic, ecologically-sound craft, and hope that the owners of the traditional gondola-like non-motorized boats will form a cooperative to gradually replace them. The design of the new “technoecological” vessels was created by scientists at the National University (UNAM) and preserves the typical characteristics that have made it a widely recognized symbol of tourism in Mexico.

The great advantage of the new boats, made of recycled PET plastic (some of it no doubt pulled from the canals), polyethylene and volcanic clay is their greater durability and stability. Proponents claim that since they are made of recycled material, unlike the traditional ones for which 20 trees have to be cut down to make each trajiinera, the new boats are much cheaper, require less maintenance and their durability is much greater, with the potential to last up to 120 years.

There is one slight problem: the cost of the machinery required to make them. Authorities hope to persuade the boatmen to form “a cooperative able to get financing for the machines,” which will require an investment of some 5 million pesos ($380,000).

This is a long-term plan, because even when the machines are installed, they can produce only about three or four boats a week, and there are an estimated 1500 trajineras currently plying the canals in Xochimilco.

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Will the southern state of Chiapas become a haven for ecotourism based on mangrove swamps?

Mexico's geography in the Press, Other 2 Responses »

Oct 062014

According to press reports such as Buscan dar “nueva cara” a Puerto Arista (in El Economista), there are plans afoot to develop nearby mangrove swamps as part of an ecotourism project. Local architects in the coastal town of Puerto Arista in Chiapas are backing the project to build what might best be called Mangrove Riviera.

The state government has released this 4-min video that summarizes the plan, with models and images of the area:

Pakal Ahau Riviera Manglar (Youtube link)

The initial investment required to get Riviera Manglar “Pakal Ahau” under way is around $120 million. The major advantage, from the state’s point of view, is that it would open up a new region of the state for tourism, cashing in on the area’s natural wealth, especially its mangroves. Proponents argue that the town could easily become a major center for ecotourism and that provided that the project incorporates a high degree of sustainability, and prioritizes the cultural identity of each location, it could be a model for similar projects elsewhere.

The six main places involved in Riviera Manglar “Pakal Ahau” are

Puerto Chiapas
Zacapulco
La Encrucijada
Costa Azul
Chocahuital
El Gancho

The project would extend to a subregion including Bahía Paredón, Boca del Cielo, Playa del Sol, Bahía Marías, El Madresal, Mojarras, Laguna La Joya, Cabeza de Toro, Cerro Bernal, Manglares and Villa Tortuguero.

In time, Puerto Arista could become another “tourist gem” in Chiapas and offer an interesting continuation of the long-standing Ruta Maya.

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Mexico’s 2013 avocado harvest and exports

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Oct 042014

Mexico is the world’s largest producer and exporter of avocados. The avocado harvest for the 2013/14 season was close to 1.5 million metric tons, a new record. More than 90% of Mexico’s avocados are grown in the state of Michoacán, where 12% of all agricultural land is currently under avocado orchards.

Avocado-growing states

Mexico produces about 1.5 million metric tons of avocados a year, on 170,000 hectares in 27 states. The principal producing states are Michoacán 1.2 million tons, Jalisco 87,000; State of México 56,000; Nayarit 34,000; Morelos 27,000; Guerrero 14,000.

Avocado exports have risen sharply and, in the first half of 2014, totaled 353,000 metric tons, worth 800 million dollars, 29% higher than for the same period a year earlier. The most important markets for Mexican avocados are the U.S., Japan, Canada, Central America and Europe, but demand for avocados in Asia, especially China, is rising very quickly. Exports to China rose 724% for the period to 1,260 metric tons, worth 3 million dollars.

Exports to the USA of avocados were worth 651 million dollars, 31% higher than a year ago; exports to Japan reached 62 million dollars, up 29%; and to Canada 41 million dollars, up 33%.

Related posts

The geography of Mexican farming, agriculture and food production: index page
Record avocado production and exports, 2012-2013 (Nov 2013)
Avocado exports have tripled but Mexico’s avocado farmers face a new problem (Jun 2012)
Avocado farms in the Mexican state of Michaocán replace forest (Aug 2010)

Cananea in Sonora: one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world

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Oct 022014

One of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world, the Buenavista del Cobre mine in Cananea produced over 200,000 metric tons of copper in 2012. The mine, opened in 1899, is located approximately 40 kilometers south of the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The open-pit mine was estimated to contain 26.874 million metric tons of copper reserve as of December 2012.

This mine was the location of a 2014 toxic spill: Toxic spill in Sonora copper mine causes environmental disaster

Source unknown. Used at http://www.labartolina.com.mx

The ore is refined at an on-site concentrator, which has a milling capacity of 77,000 metric tons/day. The concentrate output is transported to the smelter at La Caridad by rail. Also present are an on-site leaching facility and two solvent extraction and electro winning (SX/EW) plants, with an annual production capacity of 55,000 metric tons of copper cathode.

The active, 2-kilometer-diameter Colorada Pit (top right of image below) is recognizable in this astronaut photograph by the concentric steps, or benches, cut around its perimeter (see larger image). These benches allow for access into the pit for extraction of ore and waste materials.

Cananea Mine, Sonora (NASA Earth Observatory, March 2008)

Cananea Copper Mine, Sonora (NASA Earth Observatory, March 2008) Click to enlarge

Water (black) fills the bottom of the pit and several other basins in the surrounding area. The city of Cananea, marked by its street grid, is northeast of the mine workings. A leachate reservoir for removal and evaporation of water pumped from the mine workings is located to the east of the mine (image lower left). The bluish-white color of deposits near the reservoir suggests the high mineral content of the leachate.

Source unknown. Credit: https://yoreme.wordpress.com/

Text: NASA’s Earth Observatory and The 10 biggest copper mines in the world

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Mexico hosts 2014 World Tourism Day

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Sep 272014

Today Mexico is hosting World Tourism Day, so this seems like a good time to review the state of Mexico’s tourism sector. The official celebrations are being held in the city of Guadalajara.

The decision by The World Tourism Organization that Mexico should host the 2014 World Tourism Day recognizes Mexico’s importance in world tourism. Mexico is the 13th most popular international destination in the world. In 2013, it welcomed 23.7 million international tourists, who spent 13.8 billion dollars in the country. World Tourism Day 2014 highlights tourism’s social, cultural, political and economic benefits, and its importance in community development.

Earlier this year, Mexico’s Tourism Secretariat published a detailed analysis of the Tourism Industry in Mexico in 2013.

The text of the magazine format publication (link above) is in Spanish, but it includes lots of graphs and maps showing tourism’s trends and patterns. The 21 pages of information cover topics from the origin and spending of tourists to cruise ship ports, hotel occupancy, and number of international flights. The publication offers a wide variety of data and an ideal basis for students who want to design and produce infographics about tourism.

And how is tourism doing in 2014?

So far, all the signs are positive. The number of international visitors for the first half of the year was up 19.6% to 14.2 million, compared to the 11.9 million recorded for the first six months of 2013. Spending in the first half of the year was up 17.6% to 8.435 billion dollars.

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Post and Fly Videos of Mexico

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Sep 252014

A series of videos made by “Post and Fly Videos” provides an outstanding visual introduction to many of Mexico’s most photogenic sights. Some of the photography is truly stunning.

For a fun introduction, try this 4 minute video (turn your speakers on) which gives a quick tour of many parts of Mexico. (As yet, there are very few Post and Fly Videos of the Yucatan Peninsula, but I’m confident they will remedy this omission before too long!)

A list of the places shown in this 4 minute video is given below (with a few links to relevant Geo-Mexico posts), for those who like to know precisely where particular shots were taken.

Places in the video (in order of appearance):

Marina San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur
El Sidral, San Luis Potosí
Macroplaza Monterrey, Nuevo León
Las Pozas de Xilitla, San Luis Potosí
Tamtoc, San Luis Potosí
Las Estacas, Morelos
Peña del Aire, Hidalgo
El Naranjo, San Luis Potosí
Xochimilco, D.F.
Tamul, San Luis Potosí
Los Cabos, Baja California Sur
Ex Hacienda de Chautla, Puebla
Gran Cenote, Quintana Roo
El Salto, San Luis Potosí
Valle de Bravo, Estado de México
Los Cabos, Baja California Sur
Ex Hacienda de Santa María Regla, Hidalgo
Peña de Bernal, Querétaro
Acopilco, D.F.
Atlixco, Puebla
Kiosco Morisco, D.F.
López Mateos . Baja California Sur
Huasca, Hidalgo
Mantetzulel, San Luis Potosí
Metepec, Estado de México
Todos Santos, Baja California Sur
Tula, Hidalgo
Todos Santos, Baja California
Castillo de la Salud, San Luis Potosí
Holbox, Quintana Roo
Punta Allen, Quintana Roo
Muyil, Quintana Roo
Tepotzotlán, Estado de México
Parque Fundidora, Nuevo León
Santa Fe, D.F.
Balandra, Baja California Sur
Arcos del Sitio, Estado de México
Loreto, Baja California Sur
Tulum, Quintana Roo
Loreto, Baja California Sur
Tulum, Quintana Roo
Xochimilco, D.F.
Todos Santos, Baja California
Aktun Chen, Quintana Roo
Prismas Basálticos, Hidalgo
Marina San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur
Peña del Aire, Hidalgo
López Mateos . Baja California Sur

To see more Post and Fly Videos, explore their website, especially their “Explorando México” section.

Illegal pipeline connection causes oil spill in northern Mexico

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Sep 222014

The illegal tapping of a Pemex oil pipeline in the northern state of Nuevo León caused an oil spill in August 2014 that contaminated a 6.5-kilometer-long stretch of the San Juan River.

According to Víctor Cabrera, state delegate for the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa), about 23 kilometers of channels (mostly irrigation channels) have been affected in total. Profepa advised residents to avoid using water from the places affected and not to consume local fish.

Photo by Hector Guerrero

In Photos: A Massive Oil Spill Is Threatening Mexico’s Third Largest City’s Water Supply

The illegal connection to the Madero-Cadereyta pipeline was first detected on 16 August 2014, and has been attributed to the criminal activities of organized crime. It allowed some 4000 barrels of crude oil to spill into the San Juan River.

The spill affected the agricultural communities of Mexiquito, La Fragua, Soledad Herrera, Santa Isabel, Hacienda Dolores, La Concepción and San Juan, home to approximately 6000 people.

The Nuevo León state governor Rodrigo Medina told reporters that an analysis carried out by water and drainage authorities and the National Water Commission (Conagua) had shown that the local aquifers had not been contaminated. The oil spill did not reach El Cuchillo Dam, located some 70 kilometers downstream from the spill, which is one of three main reservoirs supplying potable water to the Monterrey metropolitan area.

More than 500 workers from Pemex and other organizations have been employed to clean up the spill. Within two weeks, 90% of the oil spilled had been recovered and removed, according to a Pemex report. Officials expect the clean-up work on the river banks and in the irrigation ditches to take another two months to complete.

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Mexico’s shrimp farms tackle disease crisis

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Sep 202014

Mexico’s total shrimp production in 2007 was 178,000 tons. This total masks a significant trend in shrimping. The high-seas catch has declined since 1990 and less than a third of the total catch now comes from the 2100-vessel specialist shrimping fleet based in the port of Mazatlán. On the other hand, production of fish-farmed (“cultivated”) shrimp has risen sharply over the past 20 years and now accounts for almost 70% of total national production. In the past 24 months, fish-farmed shrimp have been hit by a serious disease, which has caused high mortality and a drop in production.

The main shrimp producing states are Sinaloa (520 shrimp farms; 35,000 hectares of shrimp ponds; 40% of cultivated shrimp production), Nayarit and Sonora (see map).

Credit: Shrimp News International

Wild shrimp

Catches of wild shrimp have been in decline. Shrimp fishermen are worried about the overfishing of shrimp stocks in shallow coastal waters, allegedly due to clandestine fishing by non-authorized boats. Pollution of coastal waters from agricultural chemicals is also a major concern. According to Adolfo Gracia Gasca, a researcher at UNAM’s Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (ICMyL), only two species of wild shrimp are NOT overexploited: the brown shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, and the brown shrimp in the Pacific.

Among the many wild shrimp populations that have collapsed are the white and pink shrimps of the Gulf of Mexico. Catches of pink shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico declined from 10,000-12,000 metric tons a year in the 1980s to around 500 metric tons in recent years. Catches of white shrimp in the same area over the same period fell from 1,600 metric tons/year to less than 200 tons/year. The major problem has been the failure to enforce a closed season for shrimping during their main reproductive periods. On the Pacific coast (including the Sea of Cortés), shrimping resumed on 5 September 2014.

The Shrimp Trade

Shrimp exports are worth $360 million a year. Shrimp imports have risen sharply in the past two years as disease has reduced domestic production. Indeed, Mexico is currently having to import more frozen shrimp than it exports.

Mexico’s shrimp exports in the first half of 2014 were worth US $91.4 million, slightly down from 2013, while imports shot up 935% to $106.6 million. Mexico is importing shrimp from Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize.

Cultivated shrimp

As a consequence of Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS), the production of farmed shrimp dropped sharply between 2012 and 2013, but is expected to recover in 2015. EMS first appeared in 2009 in the southern part of China, and then spread to Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. According to SAGARPA, the disease shows up in the first 20 to 30 days of life of the shrimp, and especially affects tiger (Penaeus monodon) and white (Litopenaeus vannamei) shrimp. The disease adversely impacted thousands of producers, with shrimp mortality rates as high as 98%.

The strain of EMS found in Mexico is very similar (but not identical) to the Asian strain. It is unclear how it arrived in Mexico and whether or not it was transferred across the Pacific.

The National Aquaculture and Fishing Commission (Comision Nacional de Acuacultura y Pesca—CONAPESCA) sets the closed season for fishing and shrimping. In general, the closed season is timed to coincide with the shirmp’s summer breeding season.

What is being done about EMS?

Among the strategies being adopted to combat the adverse impact of EMS are research, provision of financing and limits on shrimp imports from infected regions.

In June 2013, a breakthrough in EMS research was reported, when investigators attached to Kinki University and the National Research Institute of Aquaculture in Japan showed that the disease repeatedly manifests itself in ponds where the pH levels are between 8.5 and 8.8.

Shrimp farmers have needed emergency financing to help them restock shrimp ponds. In 2013, fish farmers in Sinaloa received $75 million to help with shrimp production and exports.

In April 2013, Mexico’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Secretariat (SAGARPA) ordered the temporary suspension of shrimp imports originating from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The suspension included all tiger and white shrimp, whether live, raw, cooked, dehydrated or “in any presentation”. However, this strategy was criticized by international experts as “counterproductive”, given that there is no evidence for EMS being spread via dead shrimp.

Related posts:

Global survey shows Mexico emerging as the country with the most future business leaders

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Sep 182014

Which countries have the most promising crops of leaders coming up through the ranks today, and where in the world are there more young people likely to develop into business leaders tomorrow? And how can leadership be measured at all? SHL, a U.K.-based talent management consulting firm, released a study in 2012 that aims to provide answers to those questions.

SHL is a giant in the world of employee assessments, with more than 10,000 clients in over 100 countries. It offers services to consultancies like Deloitte and KPMG, multinationals like Unilever and organizations like the United Nations and the European Personnel Selection Office.

Ranking	Effective Leaders Today		Potential Leaders of Tomorrow		Ranking change between leaders for today and leaders for tomorrow
1-25	Country	%	Country	%	↑or↓
1	Hong Kong	14%	Mexico	54%	21↑
2	Germany	13%	Turkey	50%	16↑
3	United Kingdom	10%	Egypt	44%	New entry
4	Australia ∞	10%	Switzerland	43%	2↑
5	United States	10%	Brazil	42%	19↑
6	Switzerland	10%	India	41%	New entry
7	Canada	10%	Italy	41%	10↑
8	Japan∞	9%	United States	41%	3↓
9	Singapore ∞	9%	Germany	40%	7↓
10	New Zealand ∞	8%	Netherlands	40%	New entry
11	Sweden	7%	Taiwan	39%	1↑
12	Taiwan ∞	7%	United Arab Emirates	39%	9↑
13	France∞	7%	Denmark	39%	10↑
14	Thailand	7%	Sweden	37%	3↓
15	Finland ∞	7%	Portugal	37%	New entry
16	Belgium ∞	7%	Russia	37%	New entry
17	Spain	6%	Spain	37%	No change
18	Turkey	6%	Ireland	37%	New entry
19	Italy	6%	Indonesia	37%	New entry
20	South Africa ∞	6%	China (Hong Kong)	37%	19↓
21	United Arab Emirates	6%	United Kingdom	37%	18↓
22	Mexico	6%	Norway	36%	3↑
23	Denmark	5%	Poland	35%	New entry
24	Brazil	5%	Canada	35%	16↓
25	Norway	5%	China (Mainland)	34%	New entry

∞ Indicates those counties ranked in the top 25 leaders today that fall out of the top 25 for leadership potential tomorrow

“New entry” = countries not ranked in the top 25 today but listed in the top 25 for leadership potential tomorrow

This year, executives at SHL decided to mine data from past employee assessments and try to shed some light on the leadership potential in the many countries where it works. The SHL data came from 1.05 million client surveys gathered between 2006 and 2011. It focused on eight different skill areas to measure leadership capability: initiating activity and deciding, supporting and cooperating, interacting with and presenting to others, analyzing and interpreting data, creating and conceptualizing ideas, organizing and executing plans, adapting and coping with others, and finally, performing and achieving.

In September 2012, SHL published a list of the countries it believes have the greatest percentage of effective leaders, and those that it sees as most likely to develop leaders within the next three to five years. The list of current leaders may not be that surprising. The report ranks the country with the most leaders today as Hong Kong (treated as a separate country, though it is a special administrative region of mainland China), followed by Germany, the U.K., Australia, U.S.A., Canada and Switzerland.

The country that emerges as that with the most future leaders is… Mexico. According to SHL, Mexico’s “market is becoming more international and its leaders are strengthening in several different categories.”

This is an interesting analysis, but only time will tell whether or not it holds much validity!

How well do you know the geography of Mexico? Quiz 11

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Sep 152014

We hope you will enjoy our eleventh quiz about the geography of Mexico.

How many of the following can you answer? (If you answer a question incorrectly, you can have more tries before the answer is revealed.)

Good Luck, enjoy, and Happy Independence Day!

[mtouchquiz 11]

Previous quizzes:

Test wells being drilled to assess Mexico City’s deep water aquifer

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Sep 132014

Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil giant, will start drilling the first of two deep exploratory wells in Mexico City later this month to investigate an aquifer deep below the city that is believed to hold vast quantities of potable quality water. For further background, please see our previous post on this topic:

Mexico City explores deep water aquifer

The test wells are part of a $30 million multi-agency study now underway that incorporates experts from the Water System of Mexico City (SACM), the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), the engineering and geology departments of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and Pemex, which is providing the technology to drill the wells.

Later this month, Pemex will start drilling the first 2000-meter-deep test well in the Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City area, in the eastern part of Mexico City. Each well will cost an estimated $7.6 million to complete.

Schematic stratigraphy of the southern portion of the Basin of Mexico.
Source: Adapted from Mooser, 1990.

Ramón Aguirre, the CEO of SACM, says that the two test wells will target two different zones, increasing the chances of demonstrating the value of the aquifer as a viable source of water for Mexico City. In particular, Aguirre expects the wells to help confirm that there is an impermeable cap of clay separating the deep aquifer from the principal aquifer in the area (from which water is already extracted). An impermeable layer would mean that water could be safely removed from the deep aquifer without leading to downward drainage of water from the aquifer above. It is expected to take about two years for the initial studies to be completed.

In its National Water Plan, CONAGUA has warned that population growth in the Valley of Mexico could result in serious water shortages by 2030, reducing annual availability from about 4,230 cubic meters/person to less than 1,000 cubic meters/person.

The major aquifer currently used lies at a depth of between 60 and 400 meters and is heavily over-utilized. There are about 630 wells in the Federal District alone; all are overexploited and have an average life expectancy of 30 years. Current extraction from the aquifer is around 17,000 liters/second, while its natural recharge capacity is only 8000-9000 liters/second. It is believed that the deep aquifer could be capable of supplying approximately 5000 liters/second.

Related posts:

Mexico City explores deep water aquifer (Dec 2013)
Where does Mexico City get its water from? (May 2013)
Mexico’s major cities confront serious water supply issues (Apr 2013)
How fast is the ground sinking in Mexico City and what can be done? (Apr 2012)
Mexico’s freshwater aquifers: undervalued and overexploited (Nov 2011)
How can Mexico City find sufficient water? (May 2013)

Toxic spill in Sonora copper mine causes environmental disaster

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Sep 112014

A toxic spill at a copper mine in the northwestern state of Sonora is the Mexican mining sector’s worst environmental disaster in recent history.

The mine is owned by mining giant Grupo México, Mexico’s largest mining corporation and operated by its Buenavista del Cobre division. Grupo México is the third largest copper producer in the world and has a rail transport division, Ferrocarril Mexicano (Ferromex), that operates Mexico’s largest rail fleet. The Buenavista del Cobre mine, part-way through a $3.4 billion expansion plan, has some of the largest proven copper reserves in the world and is the world’s fourth largest copper mine.

The spill allowed 40,000 cubic meters of toxic copper sulfate acid to enter the Tinajas stream in the town of Cananea on 6 August 2014. Buenavista del Cobre claimed the spill was the result of an unforeseeable heavy rain storm, which triggered a rise in the level of water and copper sulfate in a holding tank being constructed at the copper mine. Grupo México has formed a team of 20 experts from the University of Arizona and Mexican universities to investigate the spill.

However, an initial report by the National Water Commission (Conagua) determined that the spill was caused by a flawed polyethylene pipe at one of the mine’s leachate tanks, together with a faulty valve at another tank. Conagua attributed the environmental disaster to negligence on the part of the company. Mexico’s federal environmental protection agency (Profepa) reported that the contaminants from the spill included copper, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, chromium, iron, manganese and lead.

Credit: Jesus Ballesteros/Expreso-Cuartoscuro.com

Mexico’s Environment Secretary Juan José Guerra Abud called it the “worst natural disaster provoked by the mining industry in the modern history of Mexico,” and confirmed that the spill contaminated not only the 17.6-kilometer-long (11-mile-long) Tinajas stream, but also the River Bacanuchi (64 kilometers in length), the River Sonora (190 kilometers long) and the El Molinito reservoir which stores 15.4 million cubic meters of water.

The contamination turned the waterways orange (see image) and affected the water supply of 24,000 people in seven communities along the rivers, forcing schools to close for several weeks while environmental authorities clean up the mess. More than 300 wells were shut down. The Sonora state government has been providing millions of liters of water via trucks to residents in the affected area. It has also started a temporary employment program to reactivate the local economy. The mining company has provided 13 million liters of water and $266,000 in immediate assistance to affected communities.

Some 800 mine workers, members of Mexico’s national mining and metallurgical workers union, blockaded the mine entrances in protest at the company’s failure to prevent the spill. Workers have been fighting over contracts since a strike in 2007.

The total clean-up costs are unknown, but likely to run into tens of millions of dollars.

On 18 August, Profepa filed a criminal complaint against Buenavista del Cobre and another Grupo México unit, Minera México, for their alleged roles in the spill. Grupo México could be fined up to 3.3 million dollars if the complaint is upheld.

Sonora State Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías has announced that the seven municipalities affected by the leached copper spill are filing a civil claim for damages.

Eight years ago in the northern state of Coahuila, an explosion in a coal mine belonging to Grupo México left 65 miners trapped underground; only two bodies were ever recovered.

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Was this fissure near Hermosillo caused by subsidence or by faulting?

Mexico's geography in the Press 2 Responses »

Sep 082014

In mid-August 2014, this significant fissure (see image) appeared near the city of Hermosillo in northern Mexico, with some press reports opting for headlines such as “The Earth Splits Open”:

fissure-hermosillo-eyewitness-news

While many press reports, especially those in English, tried to link this fissure to faulting and earthquake movements, others were more cautious, saying it was caused by movement of water underground followed by subsidence. Which version is correct? Probably neither is completely correct, since geography often fails to provide a single, definitive reason for things!

The crack is about 1000 meters (two thirds of a mile) long and up to 7 or 8 meters wide and 10 meters deep. While some press reports erroneously claimed that the crack extended across the main, paved, highway #26 between Hermosillo and the coast, its location was actually some distance away from the main highway. The road shown in the image above is a rural, unpaved road about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Hermosillo, in an area of farmland, some of which is irrigated.

Video taken by drone flying along the length of the fissure

Could the fissure have been formed by faulting associated with earth tremors or an earthquake? If this was the cause, the fence line, and the line taken by the road would have shifted position and no longer be straight. The image clearly shows that the road has been severed, but provides no evidence that the two sides have shifted position. Indeed, a close-up view confirms that even the existing fence remains in place:

The available evidence therefore rules out faulting (or earth tremors or earthquakes) as the cause of the crack.

Could the fissure have been caused by an underground flow of water followed by subsidence (the collapse of overlying rocks)? This certainly looks more likely though it is hard to imagine significant underground flows of water in an area that is as flat as this. On the other hand, this is (a) an area of newly constructed irrigation ditches and ponds, and (b) it received heavy rainfall a few days before the crack was reported.

In all probability, the fissure began as a deep but very narrow “subsidence fissure” where differences in irrigation (or in water extraction) caused some parts to be much wetter than others. The soil and rock particles in wetter areas would tend to expand, while those in drier areas would tend to contract. Such differences could lead to the formation of small initial fissures.

Once the fissure had been started, localized heavy rains and the resulting overland flow could then result in streams flowing (temporarily) in these initial fissures. The moving stream water would rapidly widen and deepen the fissures into the scale of crack shown in the photos. The initial fissure may have been formed several years before this widening process occurred.

For a more detailed look at the evidence for this fissure’s formation (and its true location), see Debunked: The Earth Splitting Open – Giant Crack in Mexico.

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A new airport for Mexico City

Mexico's geography in the Press Comments Off

Sep 032014

The Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport handled 31.5 million passengers in 2013, but is operating at near capacity. To ease its congestion, the federal Communications and Transportation Secretariat (SCT) has announced plans to expand the airport eastwards, by annexing 5500 hectares of adjacent federal land bordering Lake Texcoco. The expansion will take several years to complete.

A long-term 9.2-billion-dollar master plan for the airport, with two main phases of construction, was developed by engineering consultancy Arup.

Earlier this week during his second state-of-the-nation address, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced that the winning proposal for designing the new terminal building that forms an integral part of the first phase was submitted by UK-based architect Sir Norman Foster and his Mexican associate Fernando Romero, Carlos Slim’s son-in-law, in association with Netherlands Airports Consultants.

Peña Nieto described the new airport as “the biggest infrastructure project in recent years… and one of the biggest in the world.” He emphasized that his administration was not adopting the easiest short-term path, but “choosing the responsible path”, adding that a project of this scale would inevitably extend well beyond his time in office.

He expected that the new airport would boost tourism, allow more airlines to serve Mexico City, and also help to regenerate an area that has previously suffered severe environmental degradation.

The winning design for the iconic new terminal takes the shape of an “X”, incorporates national symbols in its details, and offers ample space for airport operations, passenger services and exhibitions. The architect is confident that the new airport will be the most sustainable airport in the world, and exceed LEED platinum standards, the highest level of LEED certification.

The first stage, due to be concluded by 2020, involves construction of a new terminal building, control tower and all the infrastructure for operating two runways simultaneously, handling up to 50 million passenger movements a year. Initial work on drainage and foundations will begin later this year. The first phase will generate an estimated 50,000 direct jobs and 160,000 jobs in total.

By 2050, a second phase would have added four more runways and more than doubled the airport’s capacity to 120 million passenger movements.

Record passenger levels in Mexican airports

During the first five months of 2014, Mexico’s airports registered 26,797,688 passenger movements (about 45% international, 55% national), a new record, and 10.8% more that for the same period in 2013. Aeroméxico, the nation’s flagship carrier, accounted for 35.3% of all passenger movements in Mexico, followed by Interjet (23.4%), Volaris (23.3%) and VivaAerobus (12.5%). Aeroméxico recently added several new routes, including links from the northern industrial city of Monterrey to Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos.

Related posts:

The importance of Mexico City’s International Airport (Apr 2010)
Plans to improve the Mexico City-Toluca transport corridor (Jan 2014)

How fast are mangroves disappearing in Mexico?

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Sep 012014

It is surprisingly difficult to give a single, definitive response to this seemingly simple question, so in 2008, Arturo Ruiz-Luna and a group of researchers set out to answer the question once and for all, by taking a close look at the available data and its reliability.

The first challenge is to define precisely what counts as “an area of mangroves”. Since the edges of any one type of vegetation tend to merge gradually into the next, the boundaries between types are often not clear or discrete. The second challenge is to find comparable maps or records of the extent of mangroves in former times. In many cases, earlier maps were based on simple aerial photography as opposed to the more sophisticated satellite imagery available today. Equally, studies relying on different technology may produce quite different results.

Ruiz-Luna and his colleagues concluded that there was a high degree of uncertainty over the true extent of mangrove cover in Mexico and over the rates of mangrove depletion. The unreliability stemmed from the very different estimates of mangrove cover given in earlier studies.

Opposition to the destruction of mangroves, Cancún climate summit, 2010

They found that the earliest estimate of the extent of mangroves in Mexico, made in 1973, was 700,000 ha (1.7 million acres). From 1980-1991, a figure of 660,000 ha was widely quoted. This is thought to have been derived from the previous figure using a linear regression to include estimated deforestation rates.

On the other hand, a study in 1992, based on 1:3,800,000 scale maps, arrived at an areal extent of 932,800 ha. A 1993 government estimate, based on satellite imagery and supporting ground survey, came up with a figure of 721,554 ha. A 1994 estimate, also using satellite data, arrived at a similar figure.

Since 2000, estimates vary from a low of 440,000 ha (based on deforestation rates and linear regression) to a high of 955,866 (almost all of it mangrove, with a small area of secondary mangrove succession).

According to Ruiz-Luna and his co-authors, it is therefore likely that the true value of the extent of mangroves lies somewhere between 600,000 and 900,000 ha, with the authors plumping for 800,000 ha as a reasonable estimate.

Why are mangroves lost?

Mangrove habitats are lost due to damage (deforestation) from logging and land use changes. Examples of land use changes adversely affecting the extent of mangroves are:

the conversion of mangroves to harbors, as in Manzanillo (Colima)
mangroves being converted for hotels and tourist use (Cancún)
mangrove swamps being reassigned for aquaculture (San Blas)

The loss of mangroves can also result from changes to hydrological systems on the landward side of the mangroves. For example, when an artificial channel was opened in the 1970s in Cuautla (Nayarit) to connect the Marismas Nacionales with the sea, the channel was originally about 50m wide. It is now about 600m wide in the middle, and more than 1000m wide at its mouth, due to damage caused by the river flow, and from the greater exposure of mangroves to higher salinity water, as well as increased mangrove mortality from storms and hurricanes.

While there are some small-scale projects to replant mangroves in some tourist area, this is unlikely to be a good substitute for the original mature mangrove ecosystem. This is why Geo-Mexico is happy to help publicize public protests against mangrove destruction, such as the one pictured above which took place at the Cancún climate summit in 2010.

Reference:

Arturo Ruiz-Luna, Joanna Acosta-Velázquez, César A. Berlanga-Robles. 2008. “On the reliability of the data of the extent of mangroves: A case study in Mexico.” Ocean and Coastal Management 51 (2008) 342-351.

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Diana Kennedy and regional cuisines in Mexico

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Aug 302014

Diana Kennedy is the world’s foremost authority on regional Mexican cuisines. Born in the UK, she moved to Mexico in 1957 with her husband, Paul Kennedy, a New York Times correspondent. Over the next half a century, Kennedy traveled the length and breadth of Mexico, collecting stories, cooking techniques and recipes, and writing about regional cuisines from all over the country.

Her first cookbook The Cuisines of Mexico was published in 1972 and quickly became a classic. She has written several other books about Mexican cuisine, including

Now in her nineties, Kennedy continues to live in an eco-friendly house in s small village near the city of Zitácuaro in the western Mexico state of Michoacán. The Mexican government awarded her the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest award for non-Mexicans, for her truly outstanding contribution to the country.

In this recent BBC radio podcast, Diana Kennedy is interviewed about her lifetime’s work, including the thousands of hours spent driving along dusty dirt tracks in her pick up truck in search of yet another unrecorded gem of Mexican cuisine.

Her travels often took her to indigenous villages, way off the beaten track, where she would study how and what the local people cooked, discovering along the way, all kinds of things never previously written about.

Podcast (mp3 file) of BBC Radio 4 Food Programme about Diana Kennedy :

The initial leads for the next trip often came from the maids of friends in Mexico City, maids who were prepared to share their family recipe secrets with her.

Kennedy documented varieties of corn and beans that are rapidly disappearing, as are the small family farms where they were grown. In most locations, she would start by exploring the local market. Marveling over the incredible fresh produce she encountered wherever she traveled, she recorded every detail; sadly, some of these markets have long since disappeared.

The “Mexican miracle” of the 1960s and 1970s, with its growing economic prosperity brought a tide of imported foods into Mexico. These reached deep into the countryside. In many places, traditional foods were forgotten, replaced by imported items such as wheat bread and pork chops.

Dietary changes have continued to plague Mexico, leading to a dramatic increase in obesity. Note, though, that despite the claims made on this BBC program, Mexico does not yet lead the world in obesity – though it is the fourth most obese country in the world (excluding small island states). Clearly, BBC researchers should read Geo-Mexico more often.

Kennedy’s 1972 book, The Cuisines of Mexico was a ground-breaking look at the regional world of food in Mexico. UNAM, Mexico’s National University, is keeping Kennedy’s work alive by making digital copies of all her notebooks, some of which date back to the 1950s.

For more about Mexican cuisine, visit the amazing award-winning blog Mexico Cooks! and also browse the huge selection of recipes, articles and tips about all aspects of Mexican food and cooking in the “Cuisine” section of MexConnect. ¡Buen provecho!

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How can tourism perception be assessed? A case study using the Lerma-Chapala drainage basin

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Aug 282014

Attempting to quantify the importance or impacts of tourism, beneficial or otherwise, is fraught with methodological difficulties. The number of hotel rooms in different cities is often used as a proxy measure of the relative importance of tourism in different communities, but looking only at tourist capacity “masks the fact that hotels are rarely full. In 2007, the national occupancy rate was 54.8%. Traditional beach resorts such as Acapulco, Mazatlán and Puerto Vallarta had an occupancy rate of 52.2%, compared to 68.1% for modern, planned mega-resorts like Cancún and Los Cabos. The occupancy rate in the large cities—Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey—was 55.0%, well ahead of the 47.2% for other interior cities.” (Geo-Mexico, p 134).

As in other branches of geography, it is not only the “reality” that matters, but also people’s perceptions of reality. Most decisions concerning location (such as where to live, the best place to start a new business. etc) are taken on imperfect or incomplete information; in other words, these decisions are based, at least to some extent, on perceptions.

In the case of tourism, it is the perception of visitors that matters. This is precisely why certain resorts gain a reputation as being “jet set” or the “in place” to vacation. The “in place” today is not going to be the “in place” in a few year’s time, since perceptions (and reality) change. Nowhere has this proved to be more true in Mexico than in the case of Acapulco.

But is it possible to measure tourist perceptions? It is very difficult to do so directly, but there are ways of tackling this question, and here we look at one approach, based on an analysis of tourist-oriented literature.

The approach is easiest to explain in the context of a real example, in this case an analysis of the likely perception of foreign tourists of destinations in the Lerma-Chapala drainage basin in Mexico. (This study formed part of my contribution on tourism to the Atlas de la cuenca Lerma-Chapala, construyendo una visión conjunta, Semarnat-Unam-IE, 2006).

The Lerma-Chapala Basin (see map) is one of Mexico’s major river systems, comprising portions of 127 municipalities in five states: México, Querétaro, Michoacán, Guanajuato and Jalisco. The basin has considerable economic importance. It occupies only 2.9% of Mexico’s total landmass, but is home to 9.3% of Mexico’s total population, and its economic activities account for 11.5% of national GDP. It also has considerable importance for tourism.

The red circles superimposed on the map represent an index of tourism perception. This index is based on an analysis of seven tourist guides that purport to cover the entire country:

AAA Tourbook (2004)
Let’s Go Mexico (2004)
Lonely Planet (2002)
Footprint Guide (1999)
Upclose Mexico (1998)
Insight Guide (1994)
Cadogan Guide (1991)

In each case, the total number of lines of text in the guide devoted to any location within the Lerma-Chapala drainage basin was counted, as well as the number of lines devoted to each individual location. This allowed a ratio or percentage to be worked out for each place for each book. For example, if a book had 240 lines in total devoted to the drainage basin, of which 60 were devoted to San Miguel de Allende, the perception index for San Miguel for that book would be 60/240 * 100 = 25%. Similar calculations were performed for all the locations mentioned, for each book, and then the mean index was calculated for each location. These mean indices were the basis for the size of the circles on the map.

In broad terms, the map shows which places are likely to be on a foreign traveler’s radar when they are visiting the area. Those familiar with this area may be surprised to see that the ghost town of Pozos merits as many lines of text as Quiroga (and indeed more lines of text than Atotonilco). Another surprise is that Tzintzuntzan appears to be as much in the tourist eye as Chapala, Dolores Hidalgo or Toluca. The main purpose of this post is not to analyse such apparent anomalies but only to suggest a relatively easy way of analysing tourist perceptions through the use of tourist-oriented literature. Applying the same method to the entire country, on a state-by-state basis, throws up far more interesting anomalies which we plan to share at some point in the future.

Previous posts about the importance of tourism in Mexico, and its impacts at different scales, from the national/international scale at one extreme to the single resort scale at the other, include

Recent progress in waste water treatment in Mexico

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Aug 252014

Two wastewater treatment plants have been in the news recently. The first is the $230 million Agua Prieta wastewater treatment plant, located north of Guadalajara in Jalisco, which was formally inaugurated last month. It is the first stage in a plan to restore the heavily polluted Santiago River back to health. The Santiago is the outflow from Lake Chapala and receives pollutants from the industrial zone of El Salto outside Guadalajara. The initial capacity of the Agua Prieta plant is 6,500 liters/second, almost all of which is returned to the river after treatment.

The plant was built by a consortium led by ICA subsidiary Conoisa, Atlatec, and Servicios de Agua Trident under a 20-year concession. President Enrique Peña Nieto claims on his government webpage that, “Integrated, sustainable water management is a government priority. The challenge is even greater because almost 50% of the wastewater returned to the environment does not undergo any form of treatment… The Agua Prieta Wastewater Treatment Plant in Zapopan… [will] improve the quality of life of 3.3 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara… It will treat 82% of the wastewater in the area, and 100% when the complementary sewage works are completed.”

According to government figures, waste water treatment coverage at the national level is currently 50.3%, with a 2018 target of 63%. Agua Prieta has raised national coverage to 53.3%, and will boost it to 54.3% once the plant is operating at full capacity and treating 8,500 liters/second of wastewater. At the state level, Jalisco is now treating 32% of its wastewater.

The Agua Prieta plant is currently the largest of its kind in Mexico and is powered by biogas derived from the wastewater sludge. However, an even larger plant is under construction, in the state of Hidalgo in central Mexico. The Atotonilco Wastewater Treatment Plant is being built by a consortium, including Mexican construction companies ICA and IDEAL, Mitsui subsidiary Atlatec and Spanish firm Acciona Agua, that won the concession to design, build, and operate this plant for 22 years, at which point the plant will be transferred to federal ownership. Work began in 2010 and is due to be completed by 2015.

The Atotonilco Wastewater Treatment Plant will be the largest wastewater plant in Latin America and one of the largest in the world, with a biological treatment capacity of 23,000 liters/second (1.99 million m3/day). The wastewater treatment is performed by a series of conventional processes, with an additional chemical process during the rainy season. Treated waters from this plant are already being used in agriculture without any additional cleaning steps. The plant is self-sufficient in terms of energy usage, since it converts the methane offgas from the wastewater sludge into electrical energy.

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How valuable are Mexico’s mangrove swamps?

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Aug 232014

Mangrove swamps have an undeserved reputation for being impenetrable thickets harboring noxious insects and reptiles. But they also have considerable value, in terms of both ecology and economics, as this case study of the Marismas Nacionales mangroves on the west coast of Mexico will demonstrate.

Map showing location of Marismas Nacionales

The Teacapán-Agua Brava-Marismas Nacionales Lagoon System extends northwards along Mexico’s Pacific Coast from San Blas in Nayarit to the southern part of Sinaloa. It is one of Mexico’s largest areas of mangroves. The total area of mangroves in the Marismas Nacionales is estimated at 58,100 hectares (224.3 square miles). Four species of mangroves are found here:

black mangrove (Avicennia germinans)
white mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa)
red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle)
button mangrove (Conocarpus erectus)

Mangroves in Mexico are estimated to be disappearing at a rate of at least 2% per year, though the available evidence suggests that the Marismas Nacionales mangroves are relatively undisturbed.

A 2012 study, undertaken by a group of Stanford Students for the Ocean Innovations Environmental Defense Fund considered the ecosystem services provided by Mexico’s largest area of mangroves, the Teacapán-Agua Brava-Marismas Nacionales Lagoon System of Nayarit and southern Sinaloa and attempted to calculate the mangroves’ carbon sequestration potential.

The ecosystem services considered included:

fisheries for shrimp, mollusk, fish and crustaceans.,
aquaculture (primarily shrimp), forestry (charcoal, firewood, wood and roofing materials),
agriculture,
coastal protection (mangrove roots help bind unstable coasts, preventing erosion and providing a natural barrier against hurricanes),
habitat for other species (breeding, shelter and feeding places for fish, crustaceans and birds) and
ecotourism (as in Mexcaltitán)

Mezcatitlán, island settlement in Nayarit

The report tries to quantify the value of each of these services. For example, it finds that the total annual revenue brought in by coastal fisheries alone around Marismas Nacionales (including shrimp, catfish, crabs and sharks) almost certainly exceeds $10.8 million.

In terms of carbon storage, the study took into account the carbon sequestered in the form of biomass (as a result of photosynthesis) as well as the carbon exported from the ecosystem via processes such as respiration, sediment burial and mineralization. The total Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) of carbon in the Marismas Nacionales was calculated to be 8 metric tons of carbon/ha/yr or about 470,000 metric tons/yr for the entire area.

Reference:

Marismas Nacionales Conservation & Carbon Sequestration Study. Preliminary Report (pdf file)

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Mexico’s “little sea cow” on the verge of extinction

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Aug 202014

Wildlife groups from around the world are urging the Mexican government to take urgent action to prevent the extinction of the “little sea cow”, the world’s smallest porpoise, known in Spanish as the vaquita marina, currently the most endangered cetacean in the world.

This particular porpoise is only found in the upper sections of the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California), and fewer than 100 are thought to exist.

Scientists say that gill-net fishing must be eliminated in the little sea cow’s native habitat for its population to have any hope of recovering to a sustainable level. Mature females will usually only give birth to one calf every two years. Even with a total ban, it would therefore take several years for natural increase to boost the population. In the port of El Golfo de Santa Clara studies have suggested that gillnet fishing is responsible for approximately 39 vaquita deaths a year.

Map of sightings and acoustic detection spots. Adapted from North American Conservation Action Plan for the vaquita

According to Jo Tuckman, writing in The Guardian, environmental groups blame the decline of the popoise population on a “booming illegal trade in the totoaba fish (mistakenly called “toboada” in The Guardian), driven by Chinese demand for its swim bladder, which is believed to have medicinal properties.” Chinese fishermen are alleged to have overfished a similar fish in their own waters, leading to a sharp increase in demand for imports of totoaba. Fishermen in the Sea of Cortés are reported to have been offered more than $4,000 for the single bladder (which weighs 500 grams) of a mature fish.

There have been numerous reported instances of illegal cross-border trade in totoaba bladders, including, Man Admits to Smuggling Swim Bladders of Endangered Fish. The fish has been listed as “endangered” since 1979 under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Between February and May 2013, border inspectors in Calexico, Arizona, seized the swim bladders of more than 500 endangered Totoaba.

In 2008, Mexico, the USA and Canada launched the North American Conservation Action Plan (NACAP) for the vaquita, under the jurisdiction of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a NAFTA environmental organization. Mexico has also established a program known as PACE-VAQUITA, which compensates fishermen who choose one of three alternatives to commercial fishing: rent-out (payments to avoid fishing in specific areas which are known to have resident vaquitas), switch-out (compensation and inducement to switch technology to vaquita-safe methods), and buy-out (compensation for permanently relinquishing their fishing permits and gear).

Clearly, these efforts have not yet paid off and more stringent controls and enforcement are desperately needed if the vaquita marina is to be brought back from the brink of extinction.

Update (31 December 2014):

“The Mexican federal government has recently proposed a US $37 million compensation plan that would ban gillnet fishing in waters inhabited by the world’s most endangered mammal species.” (Mexico News Daily, 27 Dec 2014)

Want to read more?

Opinion: Can Mexico save the vaquitas?

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Tourism’s environmental impacts in the Lerma-Chapala drainage basin

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Aug 162014

Tourism associated with rivers and lakes

So far as tourism is concerned, Lake Chapala is far more important than the other bodies of water within the basin. Only limited recreational activities are practiced in the various man-made reservoirs and in lakes Yuriria and Cuitzeo. Tourism is locally important in Zirahuén the most pristine of the basins lakes, but its small area restricts development prospects. Tourism, including ecotourism, is also locally important in Lake Pátzcuaro, with pronounced seasonal peaks corresponding to school vacations and the annual Night of the Dead. Surprisingly, there are no specialized ecotourism services at Lake Chapala.

The map shows areas of soil degradation in the Lerma-Chapala basin, as well as the locations where agriculture is a major source of water contamination. The environmental impacts of tourism in the basin are concentrated in the major cities such as Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende and León, as well as in the smaller communities where tourism is of particular importance, such as Chapala and Pátzcuaro.

The lakes in the basin, especially Chapala, have always had more significance than the rivers for recreation and tourism activities. In the nineteenth century, sail canoes plied the waters of Lake Chapala. Fluctuating lake levels since the 1950s have prevented any concerted effort to establish modern water sports (yachting, water-skiing, windsurfing) on the lake, though casual users can be seen sporadically, mainly at weekends and during school holidays. Recreational fishing is virtually non-existent in the basin. Boatmen and fishermen often have conflicting demands.

Potential for ecotourism

Environmental degradation throughout the basin has reduced the number of potential ecotourism locations. The few remaining natural habitats are in urgent need of effective conservation. None of the few small areas of the basin currently protected at a federal level is associated directly with the River Lerma or Lake Chapala. Several tourism hot spots are under extreme pressure, operating at close to carrying capacity (defined as the maximum number of visitors they can handle without adverse environmental impacts). They include the Monarch butterfly reserves, Lake Camécuaro National Park, and the island of Janitzio in Lake Pátzcuaro. Well managed tourism could help finance habitat restoration and protection. Successful planning will require considerable local participation.

Lovers of flora and fauna want to see native and endemic species, rather than imported exotics. Bird-watching is one of the fastest growing recreational activities in the U.S., a huge niche tourism market in a wildlife watching industry worth 10 billion dollars in North America (Stap, 2002). In the basin, bird-watchers have the opportunity to see several endemics, as well as spectacular flocks of the White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), which can be better viewed on the relatively undeveloped southern shore of Lake Chapala than in its breeding grounds far to the north.

The development of horse-back riding, hiking and walking trails holds considerable potential for the future. Niche markets, such as cultural, shopping and eco-tours could all be further developed. Most tourists prefer a mix of experiences; the basin offers numerous, varied tourism possibilities.

Historically, hunting was an important activity in certain areas, particularly in the marshes at the eastern end of Lake Chapala (the ciénega). One ecological issue here, aside from any need to manage wildlife numbers, is the gradual decomposition of the lead-rich cartridges used a century ago. While this needs further study, this is gradually leaching lead into the environment, but is not the only source of the elevated levels of lead that have been reported in fish and lirio samples (Jay & Ford in Hansen & Van Afferden, 127). Careful monitoring is needed to ensure that no health risk is posed to humans.

Tourism exacerbates existing demands for limited supplies of water. This needs to be recognized in tourist-oriented cities such as San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato and Pátzcuaro. Some recreational and tourism developments are more water demanding than others. Large expanses of grass cause high losses of water through evapo-transpiration especially during the dry season when watering is needed if grass is to be kept green. However, in the rainy season, grass promotes higher infiltration rates, enhancing groundwater recharge. Pressure from public and private gardens for water could be significantly reduced by xeriscaping.

Management is also needed to ensure that chemicals used in gardens, hotel grounds, and hotels do not cause pollution. The misuse of fertilizers and pesticides can have serious deleterious environmental effects. Overfertilization, for example, can increase nitrogen and phosphorus loads on watercourses, promoting eutrophication.

Golf can be one of the least environmentally sound of all recreational activities (Elkington & Hailes 1992). Constructing a golf course may involve habitat destruction and loss of wildlife; its maintenance may require copious quantities of water and agro-chemicals. A single course may use 330,000 cubic meters of water a year, as much as 4,500 people (Walsh, 2004) Aside from the ethical issue of whether water should be allocated to the playgrounds of the rich while the poor go without, golf courses can greatly reduce water consumption with careful design and management. Of Mexico’s 200+ golf courses, at least 23 are located in the basin. Several were built in the past twenty years. Several others are still in the planning stages. More golf courses may attract more retirees and tourists, but decision makers need to consider the possible social and environmental effects of constructing more courses.

References:

Hansen, Anne M. & van Afferden, Manfred (ed). The Lerma-Lake Chapala Watershed: Evaluation and Management. New York: Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. 2001.
Elkington, John & Julia Hailes. Holidays that don’t cost the earth. The guide to greener holidays. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1992.
Stap, Don. “Great Florida Birding Trail” in Audubon Magazine September, 2002.
Walsh, J. “War over water”. Golf Course News, October 2004. G.I.Media. 2004

Source:

This post is based on my contribution (on tourism) to the Atlas de la cuenca Lerma-Chapala, construyendo una visión conjunta, published by Semarnat-UNAM-IE, Mexico, in 2006. (The link is to a low-resolution pdf of the entire atlas).

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Where are Mexico’s mangrove swamps?

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Aug 142014

The National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad, CONABIO), has identified 81 distinct areas in Mexico that have mangroves with “biological significance and in need of varying degrees of ecological rehabilitation” (see summary map). These regions are distributed as follows:

10 on the northern Pacific Coast
6 on the central Pacific Coast
13 on the southern Pacific Coast
27 on the Gulf of Mexico and
25 on the Yucatán Peninsula.

A national inventory has now been compiled by CONABIO. All areas have been surveyed and preliminary descriptions published including details of their location, size, physical characteristics, socioeconomic conditions, local uses of mangrove, biological details, including vegetation structure, and an assessment of local impacts and risks, management and existing conservation measures.

The areas of mangroves have been mapped at a scale of 1:50,000 and satellite photos from 2005-2006 have been used in conjunction with fieldwork to calculate the areas of mangroves. The final map is believed to be more than 90% accurate, a reasonable baseline for future comparisons. CONABIO is planning to resurvey the mangrove areas every 5 years following the same methodology.

According to preliminary comparisons with previous attempts to quantify the extent of mangroves in Mexico (the subject of a future post), the loss of mangroves was greatest in the period 1970-1980, and in 2000-2005, but then diminished in the period 2005-2010.

Between 2005 and 2010, the states where mangrove loss remained high (as a percentage of the total area of mangroves in the state) included Chiapas, Baja Californa Sur and Sonora. However, the states losing the largest areas of mangroves in absolute terms were Quintana Roo, Campeche and Nayarit. Jalisco has the unfortunate distinction of being the state where coastal mangrove loss was highest (in terms of the proportion of its total coastline length bordered by mangroves).

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Plans for a high speed rail link from Monterrey, Mexico, to San Antonio, Texas

Mexico's geography in the Press 2 Responses »

Aug 112014

Earlier this year, a slew of press reports discussed the possibility of a Mexico-USA high speed rail link from the industrial powerhouse of Monterrey in Nuevo León state to San Antonio in Texas. (For one example, see Fast train to Monterrey on the horizon).

The reports say that Mexican transport officials and their U.S. counterparts believe that this international high speed rail link could be in operation within a decade. The new line would move passengers between the two cities in about two hours, saving almost three hours compared to highway travel.

Route of proposed high speed train from Monterrey to San Antonio. Credit: Daily Mail.

A key part of the plan would be a system to pre-clear U.S. Customs which sometimes delays northbound motorists at border crossings for several hours. (Such a pre-clearance system would be analogous to that already operating in several Canadian airports, where U.S.-bound passengers clear U.S. immigration and customs prior to boarding their flights).

Mexican officials have already secured the rights of way for the rail line from Monterrey to the U.S. border and say that this section of the line, likely to cost around 1.5 billion dollars, could be up and running as early as 2018. The U.S. section, from the border northwards, is unlikely to be completed before 2022 at the earliest, though a $5.6 million study of potential high-speed rail lines stretching from Laredo to Oklahoma City is already underway.

The first high speed rail links in North America are likely to be in Mexico, where planning is well advanced and the first construction contracts are being awarded for building high speed links from Mexico City to Toluca and Querétaro. Plans for a high speed train in the Yucatán Peninsula have also been announced.

For more details of the Mexico City-Toluca high speed rail project, see Plans to improve the Mexico City-Toluca transport corridor.

Want to read more?

Popocatepetl Volcano continues its very active phase

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Aug 092014

Popocatepetl Volcano, near Mexico City continues to be very active, with smoke and ashes belching up to 1000 meters above the crater rim. Mexico’s National Disaster Prevention Agency Cenapred, reports that the volcano had 82 “low intensity” exhalations on 7 August 2014, four of which contained “explosive material”.

Popocatapetl, 8 August 2014. Credit: Cenapred.

The agency also reported that many mionr tremors hd been recorded, including one harmonic tremor lasting 56 minutes. Geologists believe that the volcano is currently destroying dome number 50 even as dome number 51 begins to form. Dome #51 is currently about 70 meters in diameter. Renewed explosions, together with some ash fall is predicted for the coming days.

The Volcanic Traffic Light remains at Yellow Phase 2.

For a series of images dated 8 August 2014, see Images of 8 of ago of 2014

Related posts:

Images of continued eruption of Popocatepetl Volcano (6 July 2013)
Alert level rises as Popocatepetl volcano starts to erupt (April 2012)
Update on the activity of Popocatepetl Volcano (May 2012)
Popocatapetl Volcano and Colima Volcano continue to erupt (March 2013)

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